RWTHonline and RWTHmoodle – two different systems, but they are closely linked. In this blog post we want to take a closer look at the connection between these two platforms, at the underlying systematics, and interdependencies.
RWTHonline and RWTHmoodle – two different systems, but they are closely linked.
Source: Own illustration
Let’s start with the essentials: RWTHonline and RWTHmoodle serve fundamentally different purposes at the university. RWTHonline is the campus management system. This means that everything around the so-called Student Life Cycle is organized in RWTHonline. With regard to the courses, this means that the institutes and chairs can plan and organize their courses in RWTHonline and that places in the courses are also allocated via RWTHonline. From the students’ point of view, this means that they can create their weekly schedules here and register for their courses.
RWTHmoodle, on the other hand, is the university’s central teaching and learning platform. Lecturers can use this platform to make contents of their lectures available to students. Here they can file their materials and information for the courses, provide exercises and self-tests, organize supervision times, clarify questions, and interact with the participants of the course.
Although RWTHonline and RWTHmoodle have different purposes, these two systems are interlinked. The courses are the connecting element here: Courses are created in RWTHonline. Here, the digital course rooms in RWTHmoodle can also be activated. The lecturers, titles, dates, and students are then automatically transferred from RWTHonline to the corresponding course room in RWTHmoodle.
We have summarized what this means for employees and students in three frequently asked questions.
How do lecturers get their digital course rooms in RWTHmoodle?
Each course from RWTHonline can also get a course room in RWTHmoodle. For this, the person with the role “course coordinator” or “semester coordinator” must activate the course room in the course administration in RWTHonline. The requested course room is created at the earliest eight weeks before the start of the semester. Persons who are registered in RWTHonline as lecturers, assistants, or RWTHmoodle-administrators are automatically booked into the course room as managers. The prerequisite for this is that a TIM-CAMPUS coupling exists. The managers of the course room can then book additional persons – such as scientific assistants – and start structuring their course room.
Further links:
Apply for course rooms: https://doc.itc.rwth-aachen.de/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=44007979
Access for lecturers: https://doc.itc.rwth-aachen.de/display/RWTHMOOD/Vortragende
Access for additional employees: https://doc.itc.rwth-aachen.de/display/RWTHMOOD/Weitere+Mitarbeitende
How do students get into the digital course rooms in RWTHmoodle?
RWTHonline automatically books students into the course rooms, if there is a so-called “Confirmed place” for the corresponding course. Another status, such as “Requirements met”, is not sufficient. After a “Confirmed place” has been allocated, the students are automatically booked into the corresponding course room with a slight delay. Conversely, the same principle applies: If students lose their “Confirmed places” due to deregistration or exmatriculation, they also lose access to course rooms in RWTHmoodle.
In addition to the automatic booking of students, managers can also manually book persons as “Extra users” in the course rooms. This may be necessary if persons cannot register for a course in RWTHonline but still need access to the materials and other activities in RWTHmoodle. In exceptional cases, external guests can also be authorized. For this, they need a user name at RWTH (in the form of ab123456) which they received, for example, through the RWTH partner process.
Further links:
Access for students: https://doc.itc.rwth-aachen.de/display/RWTHMOOD/Studierende
Access for external persons: https://doc.itc.rwth-aachen.de/display/RWTHMOOD/Externe+Personen
Add and remove participants: https://doc.itc.rwth-aachen.de/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=42927485
Are there also course rooms in RWTHmoodle that are not connected to RWTHonline?
Course rooms can also be created independently of courses in RWTHonline. This is useful, for example, for course rooms which should not be linked to semester-dependent courses in RWTHonline. Doctoral colloquia are a great example for this case. To apply for such a course room, lecturers send an e-mail to the IT-ServiceDesk (mailto:servicedesk@itc.rwth-aachen.de) with the desired course room title, a brief description of the purpose of the course room, and the names and e-mail addresses of the initial managers. If the course room serves to support teaching at the RWTH, we will create it. In the case of course rooms that are separate from RWTHonline, it should be noted that managers must book the participants of the course manually – the automatic booking of students via RWTHonline does not work in this case.
Do you have any further questions?
At any time of day, you can find answers to frequently asked questions in our online documentation of RWTHmoodle and RWTHonline:
https://doc.itc.rwth-aachen.de/display/RWTHMOOD/Home
https://wiki-intern.rwth-aachen.de/display/RD/Startseite
If you have any further questions, then feel free to contact us via the IT-ServiceDesk (mailto:servicedesk@itc.rwth-aachen.de) or give us a call (Tel.: 0241-80 24680). We are happy to help you with the use of RWTHonline and RWTHmoodle.
Responsible for the content of this article is Susanne Kubiak.
